I am so moved every time I read this poem by Lorna Crozier. It reminds me of how fragile and misguided we can be as human beings; always searching outside ourselves for what is right there inside of us. Why do we believe more readily in,
“…the birds at false dawn…” then our own unique wisdom and music?
What if you knew the unwavering answer to the question posed in the poem, “Where does the singing start?” Where does abiding beauty and goodness; “pure light…” begin? What if you could hear that answer whispered to you with deep, assuring love each time you needed reminding?
Imagine a patient knowingness, coaxing you to remember that it all begins,
“Here, where you are, there’s room
Between your heartbeats…”
What if the perfect marriage has always been between being and doing? And your rightful work is knowing and practicing how to step outside of the thoughts that are steering your life? How might giving yourself the gift of your own attention and the gift of your own no-strings-attached love, how might this affect all of your relationships…all of your moments big and small?
What if you got out of your own way so that,
“…everything you have ever been
Begins, inside, to sing.“
Something to try:
Practice paying attention to your breath, your heart beat and the sensations of the body, more often than you check messages on your phone this week.
My nephew gave me a jar of homemade strawberry jam yesterday.
I remember all the times my sisters and I made jam with my mom. How the fresh berries we’d pick, that I wanted to eat right then, were marked for jam. It felt like an enormous injustice in the moment but by winter it was a distant memory when I layered summer sweetness over buttered toast.
The gift of jam also made me think of the poem, “Answers,” by Mary Oliver and of how sweet simplicity is; uncomplicated happiness without the weight of obligations, and of how things were or should be.
In these first days of summer, what calls you home to simplicity? Allow yourself to be at ease with whatever is; allow being to be the answer.
Do you know that expectant look on someone’s face, accompanied by food in hand and the words, “Try this. You’re going to love it!”
Food can be an experience if you are paying attention.
After travelling when I was younger, I came home with a dismal bank account balance but a big appetite to work. My day job was in advertising as a copywriter, a few days a week over lunch and weeknights I led yoga classes from various locations and on Saturdays and Sundays I worked at a hair salon/spa, massaging. I was a busy bee.
The owners of the salon and spa were busier. They had a work ethic that was astounding. I learned a lot through them the seven years I was there. I also ate a tremendous variety of foods that were entirely new to me and was presented with that expectant look that I would ‘love it.’ Often I did.
Weekends were almost always fully booked for massage so I usually only had time to eat during the cross-over from one client to the next.
I would bring food and the owners often had something they’d made me or bought for me from the Asian supermarket nearby. I ate it all in fast and mindless bites whenever I had the chance.
One afternoon I was excited to try a baked good that had been talked about a lot that morning. It was a very pale white/grey and sort of smelled like play-doe (in a good way). I thought it might have been bread but I wasn’t sure. It wasn’t that big and I popped the whole thing in my mouth. I noticed immediately that there was excitement amongst the others in the break room as I ate it. They watched me closely.
The texture was really odd but I didn’t want to let on and hurt anyone’s feelings. It was pillowy soft and also the chewiest thing I’d ever eaten. It melted in my mouth and also didn’t break-down no matter how much I chewed and chewed. I was in a hurry and literally didn’t feel like I had time to keep chewing this thing. I pictured my next client already on the massage table. I gulped some water and chewed and drank more water and chewed and finally I got it down. There was a lot of laughter and chatter in Cantonese and then one woman finally said to me in English, “You ate the paper.”
Eating with presence is one of life’s true sensual pleasures. It is a doing that is ripe for practicing being. When you are in a hurry or your mind is everywhere but the present moment, you are missing out on the feedback from your senses….you might also miss that something is wrapped in paper 😀
How often do you eat without the slightest recollection of any part of the meal?
Try this:
Carve out time for all your meals (or at least one a day) this week. Remove distractions like clutter, screens, noise. Arrange your food on your plate in a way that is pleasing to you. Notice the visual texture of your food, how it smells and feels as you touch it or cut through it. Notice the sound of your breath as you lift the food to your mouth. Allow an awareness to sink into you that food keeps your miraculous body functioning; it is vital to keeping you alive. Once your food enters your mouth, pour all your attention into texture, the first taste. Don’t be in a hurry. Noice what flavours emerge and the changes in texture, the movement of your jaw, lips, the role of your teeth and tongue. Watch for flavour even as you swallow and then once your mouth is relatively empty again. Try to be there for every single bite. Explore what it feels like to be with your whole body too so that you might also realize when you truly have had enough.
Someone I know once gave me what I still think is pretty good advice on how to have a difficult conversation over the phone. Here were the 3-step instructions:
Stand tall and take up space; apparently you sound more confident.
Be sure that you can at least see your face in a mirror and be vigilant about keeping a neutral to pleasant facial expression that will be reflected in your voice.
Write out all the points you would like to make beforehand so these are fresh in your mind but don’t use your notes during the conversation, choose to actively listen instead.
When I first started to lead yoga classes, I worked from various locations. One place I held classes, was a dance studio I sub-letted from another woman. She had a strong personality, she was a force field actually, and I was a bit scared of her 😉
Initially, her own classes were few and far between. The first part of the year things went really well between us but mostly because we rarely crossed paths. Once she started using the space more often we ran into difficulties around scheduling. Here are three of the bigger examples:
A: The days/times I would use the space no longer worked for her schedule after we’d agreed and I had printed my flyers. I was out of pocket for printing but since I hadn’t distributed them yet, I decided not to rock the boat.
B: An hour before one of my classes was scheduled, she left me a voice mail to say that the space was not available to me or my students that day because she would be using it for a private session. I received her message only after arriving for the class since I had driven straight there from my day job.
C: Much like the situation above, I was called the same day of a class (the morning of this time), and advised to call my students right away so there wouldn’t be an embarrassing repeat of our last scheduling conflict. From my perspective these weren’t examples of unforeseen or unavoidable conflicts but an emerging pattern of poor planning on her part. She saw it differently.
This is when I employed the ‘difficult conversation over the phone’ guidelines for the first time. Here they are again under a mindfulness lens:
Stand large (remain grounded in the body).
Watch your face in the mirror (stay present, act with intention, allow emotions to move through you).
Write out your concerns clearly so you are ready to listen (appease the voice in your head that compares, critiques and needs to be right and remove the distraction of planning your response while the other person is speaking).
The call was like a magic elixir for me. I stayed grounded, calm and kind. I expressed how I perceived the situation and responded to her concerns from the present moment. It was a very different experience from previous interactions between us. I also made the decision during the conversation that it was necessary to go our separate ways…and not in a hot-headed way, it just made sense.
Mindfulness practices are practical.
In retrospect, here’s what I also learned through this relationship. Her behaviour was a problem. My behaviour was equally the problem.
She was able to steam roll me because I was willing to be steam rolled. She could be unclear about boundaries because I was also unclear about boundaries. She chose to fixate on my inadequacies (my lack of responsiveness to her needs as the primary user of the space) and I chose to fixate on her inadequacies (her lack of respect for our agreements and my students time). We were stuck in this struggle with each other that we each created and upheld. Years later, I chatted with her during a chance encounter in a parking lot and she shared the strain that she was under at the time which also placed a lot in perspective.
Examine your own difficult relationships this week. Start in the past for more ready-access to reflections with fewer emotional attachments. Then, work forward to a present-day struggle. What is at the root of your difficulties with others? How do you tend to project onto the other person? What role do you play? How can you start with yourself right now to make a shift?
You can’t change another person but you can create the conditions for their response when you make a change in yourself.
You could work this out on paper, with a therapist or explore an openness to ‘what is’ through a meditation. Or maybe…try picking up the phone. Good luck.
On my walk this morning I saw a feather. It made me think about how magical I once thought feathers to be. I loved how they felt, how they were structured, how they looked in the sun. I was pretty sure with the right words and right swoosh through the air, anything was possible.
I also held romantic notions about all the things I could write using the quill. The end product of writing with one was rarely what I imagined but like a four-leaf clover, I was freshly inspired by possibilities on the discovery of each new feather.
I should probably mention that as a kid picking up and (gasp!) bringing a feather inside my house was a necessary covert activity, especially when my grandmother lived with us. She called feathers ‘filthy’ with a facial expression of disgust that I can still see clearly in my mind all these years later.
Harvesting ‘ink’ was another obstacle. I cut up my share of pens and never accumulated a well, just a lot of ink all over my hands. I used lemon juice for secret messages. Mustard was a medium I used born out of sheer inspiration, or maybe it was desperation because I don’t ever recall having paint or food colouring or anything else to use in a quill-writing emergency.
So, when I spotted the feather on the sidewalk this morning, the voice I heard in my head said this, “It’s too bad that feather is so filthy.”
Can you still hear the faint echo of magic? It is tucked into the words, ‘it’s too bad’. I also felt it; a slight ache at my chest, a longing for something I once knew in my heart.
Listen for your own echos this week. Listen for them through your body, right inside the moment you are in. Let your authentic self know you are willing to hear and ready to take flight.
My daughter just turned 12 and is swiftly moving into womanhood. I am watching her regularly occupy two worlds; that of a child and of an emerging young woman. It is sometimes heartbreaking to watch, I want to fix what’s difficult. When I am mindful, I also realize all of it is necessary and achingly beautiful.
Consider this: No matter how old you are, growing pains are a constant part of life when you are committed to growing as a person.
I flew to France on my own when I was 12 to visit my best friend who had moved there for a year with her family.
The airline I went with offered an ‘Unaccompanied Minor Service’ which meant one of the flight attendants was assigned to me. She led me from check-in, through security to the departure lounge. I didn’t wait long before there was a pre-boarding call and I was escorted again to my seat which was the first window seat in economy after the business class section. No one was sitting beside me.
Early on during the fight one of the pilots came to join me. I assumed it was part of the kids program where I would get to see the cockpit, which was common on most airlines pre-9/11. There was no mention of the cockpit though, he just chatted with me about all kinds of things. I really liked him. He was funny and easy to talk with and he asked if he could join me for dinner later on during the flight. I said I would love it. This was the pilot, after all, and I was 12. I was super excited to have his attention.
When it came to the dinner service he brought me some nice extras from the business class menu; some fresh bread, cut fruit and an extra dessert. He also went back for wine and two real wine glasses. The conversation over dinner felt different. It was very grown up. The pilot talked about all the wonderful things he would show me once we landed in Paris. Everything he suggested sounded incredible. I was well aware he didn’t realize I was 12 or that I had a connecting flight to Marseille. Once the flight attendant who had assisted me earlier saw with adult-eyes that the situation needed attention, she enthusiastically yelled at him en française. The predominately one-sided conversation was spoken too fast and with too many French words I didn’t know but her tone along with a peppering of, “elle a douze ans,” (she is 12 years old) was enough. His reaction also said a lot; his face went a deep crimson and he sheepishly left. I was also embarrassed and felt like I’d done something wrong.
The young woman in me had appreciated being treated like an adult. My emerging independence loved the sound of adventuring in Paris between flights and was eager to appear like I did that kind of thing all the time. I was also enough of a kid to know I was out of my depths, that I’d never make it through drinking a glass of wine without cringing and that the jig was sure to be up before the flight was once my ‘unaccompanied minor’ status was revealed amongst adults.
After we landed, the flight attendant was determined to get some details from me about what I spoke about with the pilot and if I had consumed any alcohol. I was stubbornly uncooperative. In my mind she had transformed into the enemy from my original perspective of helpful guide. From where I stood at 12 years old, I didn’t see the full picture. I didn’t have enough varied experiences to draw from.
Isn’t this a common story for all of us at every stage of growth? Sometimes you see enemies and obstacles where help exists. Sometimes you simply need greater life skills or resources before you make the big decision or move away from a situation that isn’t working. Trying on a role can also feel good and be instructive even if it doesn’t make sense and you aren’t yet ready to radically change your life.
What if, however, your situation is different than that?
What if you have stood still so long in the place you’ve comfortably occupied -the job, relationship, lifestyle- that you have stopped enjoying the conversation, the nice bread, fresh fruit and extra dessert…what if you don’t feel like you deserve the possibility of exploring Paris? Isn’t that when you must make it a priority to come home to yourself and build practices that nourish you? Isn’t it worth the effort to take the steps toward living your fullest life?
Or maybe you are currently observing someone you love stuck in the same developmental stage, addiction or role that will never serve them? Sometimes it is appropriate to intervene and course correct and sometimes your own growth depends on lovingly observing the person you care about figure out the rest of their travels.
Growing pains are a constant part of life when you are committed to transforming into the newest version of yourself.
Remove the roadblocks by paying attention to the details of your life. Explore Paris like a twelve year old and intentionally occupy two worlds; that of a curious and excited child and through your emergent self who is ready and willing to experience the journey. Imagine a world where we all maintained a commitment to ourselves like that: it would be difficult, necessary and achingly beautiful.
The first 10-day Vipassana Meditation Course I ever attended, I thought I knew what was in store for me. I would be in seated meditation for about 10+ hours a day, it was a silent retreat, there would be no access to the outside world through technology, and in addition, reading, writing and music were not permitted.
What I didn’t anticipate was that when all else is really quiet, the mind can be an absolute circus…on repeat.
Even though I had a regular meditation practice, it was the first time I had spent numerous full days in a row meditating. I had watched my clinging and aversion before. What was different this time was to watch my thoughts on a kind of movie reel that was looped to play again and again and again. There were many narratives on this endless loop. Here are examples of three tedious ones that partway through the course decided to throw in the towel:
Tedious thought pattern #1
On the drive to the Vipassana Centre, I received a speeding ticket. A big, expensive one that I badly wanted to lament over. I played out why I took the route I did when it made more sense to go a different way. Why was I speeding when I wasn’t in a hurry? I listed numerous ways I acted recklessly. I countered with ways I was very responsible. When the police officer pulled me over and said ‘X’ why did I say ‘Y’? I could have said ‘A’, ‘B’ or ‘C’. The way the officer jumped into traffic to pull me over was dangerous in my opinion. Why didn’t I say ‘X’. What if the police officer then responded with ‘Y’. On and on I went about what I did and what I didn’t do. What if… What if… What if…
Tedious thought pattern #2
Once I was shown to my room, I got out my meditation stuff to set up in the hall for that night’s first meditation session. I had my cushions, my shawl, some comfy layers but my cozy socks were nowhere to be found. When I looked further in my bag I realized I didn’t pack a single pair of socks, cozy or otherwise. I only had the thin pair I had on my feet that I’d worn to work that day. The ten days ahead stretched into a lifetime without socks. I immediately made a plan in my head, “I’ll wash them after the last sit on the second day and dry them overnight on the baseboard heater. Then I’d resume the schedule on the 4th, 6th, and 8th day. They are thin,” I reasoned. “How long could they really take to dry?” Answer: longer than between lights out and the 4 a.m. morning bell. Clinging to my memory of comfort was relentless.
Tedious thought pattern #3
And a third torment was the rule around exercise; only walking was permitted during free time so that meant no yoga for ten days. I knew this going in and still it wasn’t something I wanted to accept. After my first 10 hours, I was convinced that I would never walk with ease again because my legs would remain in a permanently folded position for the rest of my life. I was also pretty sure my upper back was breaking a little more each hour of meditation in a unique way that ensured my lungs couldn’t expand efficiently to draw in adequate oxygen. I needed yoga or so I told myself. My morning yoga practice at home was elevated to a utopian dream from the distant past. I wondered if the seated spinal twists or forward bends I’d done in the meditation hall counted as breaking the rules. What I played out in my mind (with satisfaction) was the dialogue that might ensue if I were ever questioned about this defiant act.
Are there variations of these thought patterns that you can relate to; ways you push away or hang on to an idea, a plan or a relationship? The mind is constantly commenting, evaluating, jumping forward and back from the future to the past about your clinging or your aversion. Sometimes the mind grapples with bigger issues and other times the minutia of life.
Consider this:
The helpful mind uses the past and the future constructively.
An unhelpful mind is used by the past and the future; it is held hostage by what has been and what might come to be while obscuring the moments that unfold in the present. The unhelpful mind disperses your energy into the details of the past and future.
What situations in your life right now do you catch yourself having an internal chat about? What might you declutter, from the activity in your head, if you could shine a light on those regular mini mind dramas?
Choose to gather the energy you exploit when you run away from what is difficult. Harness the effort you put into hanging on to the past, to what isn’t working or to a life that will never come to be. Let go. Redirect it all to what matters to you, right now in the present.
Imagine the power of that?
Imagine too what and who you might choose to be part of your moment-to-moment life if you believed in the true power of your intention and attention.
This week, spend a little time each day listening-in on the voice inside your head and then with courage and determination choose to focus on what is instead.
Personal narratives matter. The willingness to turn toward the pain of others matters. And prayer, whatever you embrace that to mean, also matters.
I felt fortunate to take part in a prayer circle for India recently. The zoom call, with people from all over the world and from many faith traditions, was two hours long and so incredibly moving.
One volunteer described his team as “ground soldiers of love” visiting remote areas with a mobile clinic to provide medical care and groceries for some of India’s most vulnerable. He described crowds of people lined up outside hospitals waiting for care or waiting to hear of news of loved ones who had been admitted. Volunteers handed out water in the heat.
One woman shared that people she knew had loved ones go into the hospital, die from Covid and be sent straight to a crematorium without their involvement. She described the real fear around lack of food and the impact of isolation and suspicion within close-knit communities. She also shared her own transformation as a witness of the willingness of others to keep an open heart alongside pain; to share resources, information and sorrow.
The themes that emerged were beautiful. Human beings have an enduring capacity to reach toward each other and to be creative for the greater good.
Suffering and the awareness of suffering
I have often struggled in my own life to take in news coverage that capitalizes on the brain’s negativity bias, to watch violent movies as entertainment, or listen to music with messages aimed to shut down rather than to open.
There is real suffering in the world. There are genuine opportunities to face what is difficult.
One woman in the prayer circle said,
“When we are in complete darkness, we hear one another with a kind of acuteness that’s very rare.”
I believe that too. Difficulty and pain cuts through the clutter like nothing else. In darkness, questions effortlessly emerge about personal needs as well: What and who do I really care about? Why am I wasting my time hiding?
Don’t we have choices about where to place our energy? Presence can bring forth something greater in all of us; a kind of rising up. Maybe this, in part, is what I believe prayer to be: a decision to ‘turn toward’ with intention and to create more space in the heart for goodness. That matters.
Ground soldiers of love are necessary. Soldiers of the heart are also necessary.
This week, consider ways you can choose how and where to direct your attention. As a deliberate act toward the greater good, start with yourself.
There were two people I used to know who I still think of sometimes. The love between them was really beautiful. Let’s call them the ‘running couple’.
The woman had married young and had children. Her marriage was difficult and she went through a very turbulent and expensive divorce.
After a couple of years in an apartment, she had saved enough for a downpayment toward the purchase of a small house.
She was a runner and kept literally crossing paths with another runner who lived on her new street. Almost immediately they became inseparable.
He was wide-eyed and in love with everything she did and with everything her kids did. He was amazed at his good fortune to have them all in his life.
She was equally taken with him. She was having fun for the first time in years, had more energy to be a better parent and she simply couldn’t imagine her future or her kids’ futures without him. Her gratitude was endless.
And then, she made a surprising decision. She chose to get back together with her ex-husband.
After the break-up (or reunion depending on your perspective), the running couple were devastated about what this decision meant for their future. A light had gone out in both of them.
They loved each other. They also believed they were making the best decision for all involved. Two things (and more) can be equally true.
Isn’t it possible to be scared and courageous? Honest and kind? Exhausted and alert?You can be surrounded by people who love you and feel unloveable. Experience guilt and fulfillment. You can be committed to a healthy lifestyle and find out you are sick.
What if the thing you seek or choose isn’t either/or? What if it is both/and. Letting go of either/or can be liberating. It might even be the shift you need to access the strength to follow what your heart knows to be true.
A few years ago, I added a small round charm to the necklace I always wear that hangs at my upper centre chest. I had the word ‘and’ engraved on it.
I added it to remind me of the ‘and’ when I am feeling stuck, unsure or for when my thoughts cling to what isn’t. It was an attempt to reject binary perspectives and to move into the possibilities of wholeness. Sometimes the ‘and’ around my neck reminds me about my sincere intention to live the ‘and’ inside my heart. Sometimes it doesn’t.
Here is a meditation practice that is another way to move into the wholeness of the ‘and’:
Take a few breaths and simply pay attention to where you notice the inhalation and exhalation the most in the trunk of the body. Is it at the belly as it rises and falls? Or is it more at the upper chest? There is no right answer, just notice what you feel and where you feel it. Choose the place that becomes most obvious to you and let it become your intention to breath from this place, radiate outward with each inhalation and relax with each exhalation. Expand from the place you notice in the trunk, expand a little more, and then a little more still until your awareness fills the trunk of your body. Then, include the limbs and neck, then reach the tips of the fingers and toes and the entire skull. Let your awareness finally reach to the skin so that it feels like you can breath and embrace the whole body with your attention.
Use this meditation for a few consecutive days or weeks and then start to expand this to include how you see a room, the forest when you are on a hike, the way you see another person’s face. Whatever it is, find the place you are drawn to and expand your awareness into the whole. Practice seeing (and living) the ‘and’.
Sometimes it is hard to see clearly when you feel like you are trapped in a certain space, but a locked door is a blessing.
For a short time, I lived in a two bedroom apartment that had the shower and sink in one room and the toilet in another. The door handle to the room with the toilet was broken. I knew this. Everyone that came over knew this. A few times out of habit, I’d gone in and swung the door closed and was unable to get back out without someone from the outside using pliers on the lock mechanism to reopen the door.
One day after attending classes, I returned home mid-afternoon. Without thinking, I went to use the toilet and heard the door click behind me. I was locked in and this time I was home alone.
The room was smaller than most public restroom stalls. The tank was mounted to the wall and there was space to stand to each side of the toilet and to the front but not much more.
My first response to my situation was to laugh because, it was so ridiculous and, really, how hard could it be to pick the lock? Over the next six hours or so I didn’t continue to be that amused.
‘Hahaha’ swiftly turned to ‘all I need to do is this…or this…or maybe this’. At one point I had the idea to remove the float arm from the tank and then soon discovered it was a useless tool to open the door anyway. I needed the pliers that were sitting just outside the door.
I tried yelling for help. Nothing.
I spent tremendous amounts of mental energy imagining how my afternoon might have gone differently. I played out scenarios about how I would eventually get out. I made mental lists of all kinds, imagined in detail what I would eat once I had access to the kitchen again. Eventually, I did a yoga sequence from the lid of the closed toilet seat and then continued to battle my mental chatter before I settled into a seated meditation.
When you have done everything you can from where you are, sometimes the only thing left that makes any sense is to accept ‘what is’ and make fresh choices from that reality.
Late that night I was freed. The next day the lock and handle were replaced.
You can know things. And then you can really know things. I knew that lock needed to be fixed but I was busy with my life. I was busy wanting what I wanted. What things do you know you need to fix? Your relationship with…yourself, another person, with food, an addiction, your working life? What wants in your life do you use to justify staying stuck in a place that doesn’t provide you with what you need?
A locked door is like the gift of a key in your hand along with a message that says, ‘choose another way’.
Sometimes it is hard to see clearly when you feel like you are trapped in a certain space, but a locked door is a blessing.
